


After the Spring

by Valyrian_Steel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, F/M, Jon Snow is Lord of Winterfell, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, M/M, Multi, Queen Daenerys Targaryen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23878072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valyrian_Steel/pseuds/Valyrian_Steel
Summary: Over a decade has passed since the Long Night. The Starks rule from Winterfell once again, under a Targaryen Iron Throne. But the reforms of Queen Daenerys which have won her much love amongst the smallfolk have also alienated many who chafe under the dragon queen's new order. In the Vale, disturbing reports of disappearing boys sends the queen's men on a wild hunt that uncovers a much darker conspiracy. Across the waters, the royal territory of Meereen, one of Old Ghis' proudest heirs, stirs once more as cries for liberation from the foreign tyrants of Old Valyria and far-flung Westeros grow louder still. Though the Others are vanquished and the War for the Dawn won, the desires of men call forth darker beasts from the void of ambition - and those still might not be only dark things that lurk beyond the mind's eye. Though the ruling generation might have begun laying the foundations of a new world, building a decade of peace in the process, the shadows of the past and the new enemies of the present still linger.It begins when Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Marshal of the North, and his brother travel from Winterfell to meet their sister Sansa Arryn, Lady of the Eyrie, and her children.
Relationships: Aegon VI Targaryen/Daenerys Targaryen, Harrold Hardyng/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Val
Comments: 35
Kudos: 75





	1. Sansa I

**SANSA**

Peace was hard to make, and harder to preserve.

Even after a decade, Sansa was not certain it would last. When she was a girl of spring and summer, that peace had given way to darker years of death and despair. It had forged her into a woman of winter, cold steel and icy gales teaching her never to rest easy. Hers was a life of impermanence, swept across the years by frosty winds of war and change. But she supposed she could be forgiven, every once or so, for forgetting all that had happened. She could afford to sometimes set aside those memories of Cersei’s smirks and the green fires of the Blackwater, of Petyr Baelish’s minty sneers and Sweetrobin’s screams, or the bitter _cold_ of Winterfell and the twisted snarls of dead things rising beneath the castle. She could be forgiven for calm, serene, and lazy afternoons watching her children build battlements of snow and sticks in the Eyrie’s courtyard, or for letting her mind wander indulgently on occasion. Today was one of those days.

“My lady.” Podrick stood at his door, the words spoken in his soft manner. “Your brother’s host has been sighted two leagues away. They should arrive within the hour.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Pod.” She turned to her daughters. “Come now, my sweetlings.”

“ _Mother._ ” Cat wrinkled her nose, painfully reminding her of another girl who would have done the same in another life. She had been the first to spring to her feet nonetheless, excited at the prospect of seeing her uncle once again. Her poorly tied braid had come undone, strands of her pale hair flying across her face. 

Sansa tried her best to be stern. “Catelyn Arryn. What have I told you about braiding your hair properly?”

“I _hate_ braids,” her daughter all but wailed. “Nuncle Jon won’t mind! He never does!”

_That’s because you remind him of the same person I think of always._

Podrick’s face remained stoic, though it was clear to her he was stifling a laugh. Her youngest, Jeyne, giggled softly at her sister’s plight, while her elder sister sighed in a way that made Sansa recall that Winterfell girl who had been far too obsessed with princes and poetry.

“Come here, Cat, I’ll braid it for you.”

“I _don’t want_ a braid, Anya! Let’s go, now!”

“Cat, half of father’s lords bannerman will be there. You are an Arryn of the Eyrie, not some wilding spearwife.”

“Aunt Val is a spearwife…” Cat muttered darkly, though it was clear her resistance was fading. Her sister had already positioned herself behind her, and despite small squirms and breathy sighs indicating rebellion, she submitted to her elder sibling. If there was one thing, she could thank the gods for, it would be the bond her daughters shared. They fought often but forgave quickly, the legendary pride of houses Stark and Arryn never preventing them from forgetting past squabbles. _If only I could’ve done the same, all those years ago_. Anya hummed a summer song softly, working her hands and bone comb through her sister’s long, unruly locks. She quickly tucked a simple braid with a casual efficiency that would have made both Jeyne Poole and Beth Cassel cry out in amazement, before tying it with a simple ribbon of Arryn sky blue. 

“… and you are mother’s daughter, not hers.” Anya smiled victoriously, earning herself a glare from her sister. _Yes._ Sansa thought. _Yes, she is._

***

The first time Sansa had seen a direwolf banner flying since she left Winterfell with her father, she had wept. It had surprised Harry who had thought his ‘lady of ice’, cold and unflinching, was above emotion. It had done the same for Lord Petyr, because he had taught her to _be_ above emotion. She had sprinted to Jon then, surprising him with a warm embrace that put Alayne Stone in her grave for good, resurrecting Sansa Stark to stand once more in her place. It took all her willpower not to do the same here and now, her inner voice drumming into her head that she was no longer Sansa Hardyng, wife of Harry the Heir, but Sansa Arryn, lady of the Vale itself. Jon’s entourage was simple, as she had expected, little more than his household guard and a few loyal retainers. Among them, Sansa recognized fewer than she would have liked. _I have been away from Winterfell for far too long,_ she thought sadly. There was bold Grenn, Jon’s loyal friend from the Watch, who he had sent to watch Sansa and infant Anya with a dragonglass ax and a Valyrian steel dagger when the Others were at the gates of Winterfell. Asher Forrester, a man of few words, but a warm smile. To his right, mounted on a large stallion was broad-shouldered white-haired Tormund Giantsbane, the freeholder of Ruddy Hall, one of the new territories in the Far North that lay beyond where the Wall once stood. From her tower in Winterfell, she had seen him save Jon’s life thrice-over as wights had stormed their battlements. They rode in after the herald carrying the Stark banner, mere moments before the Lord of Winterfell himself galloped into the Gates of the Moon. She heard Cat’s cry of delight, quickly muffled by her sister’s hand and the sounds of the trumpets on the battlements. In simple leathers and furs, a quick glance could have convinced someone who knew them that the man dismounting from his horse was in fact the late Eddard Stark, or even his brother Benjen. Confident and authoritative, Jon Stark looked like one of the kings of winter Old Nan had once told Sansa and her siblings about over a roaring hearth. With his dark hair, and a piercing grey gaze that had quickly scanned the courtyard for allies and enemies alike, none could truly doubt that before them stood a lord of Winterfell, descended from the Starks of old. While the colouring of their father still dominated his features, age had softened the Stark look ever so slightly – a good thing, Sansa thought privately. _Whoever his mother was, she must have been a beauty_. His cheekbones were more prominent, sitting high on his face, and his jaw seemed more pronounced than when he still kept a long beard the last time they met. Where Lord Eddard was broad-shouldered and well-built, Jon was leaner and taller. His eyes were unflinching orbs the colour of dark Valyrian steel, though they softened as they had landed on Sansa and her daughters.

And next to Jon stood a boy she scarce recognized but could place immediately from the direwolf brooch he wore.

“Hello, Edd,” she called softly, smiling. He smiled back - a quick movement of his lips, near as solemn as his father’s, though the slight colouring of his cheeks betrayed a fluster he hid quite well. Sansa couldn’t blame him. It was his first time in the South, and probably his first time in front of so many assembled knights and lords.

She looked at Jon, her smile never leaving her face.

“Lord Stark. Welcome to the Vale of Arryn. My husband is out hawking – we had anticipated your arrival would be later. I receive you in his stead, with his apologies.”

Jon stepped forward, taking her hand and kissing it. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Arryn.” He looked up, meeting her gaze and returning her smile. “It is good to see you again, Sansa. You look as lovely as ever.” 

Sansa’s reply was cut off when a shape barreled into Jon.

“Nuncle Jon!”

The gathered lords chuckled in amusement as Jon Stark, the unifier of the North, vanquisher of the dead, and hero of the dawn, struggled to maintain his balance at his niece’s fierce embrace. He returned it all the same, his solemn façade breaking as he chuckled with the rest of the Stark and Arryn bannermen. “Hello, Cat.”

“Did you bring me anything?”

Anya sucked in a breath, the poor girl half-collapsing from embarrassment. “ _Cat!_ ”

Jon’s laugh increased in volume. Then his eyes glistened with mischief, staring quickly at Sansa, before dropping his gaze. “Maybe. That would depend on how much grief you have been giving your poor mother and sister.”

“I’ve been good!”

Her brother raised an eyebrow.

Cat sighed. “Most of the time”, she insisted. She then turned to glance at her mother expectantly, but found instead her elder sister’s mortified glare, and her younger sister putting up a valiant attempt at suppressing her laughter. Sansa did not meet her gaze, though she was sure her lips did quirk upwards ever so slightly. She looked at the rest of those assembled in the courtyard who were staring her way, and reddened. “Oh.”

Sansa saw her brother struggling to maintain his composure, as his lips twitched. He tried to turn away from Cat, radiating a sudden mirth rare to the members of their house, and rarer still for a man who had once been a sullen-faced boy named Jon Snow. Yet she could detect a subtle sadness all the same, and a sense of loss permeated through the few footsteps that separated them. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared, and solemn Lord Stark’s cool gaze returned. He glanced at the lords of mountain and vale gathered behind her. “Pardon me, my lords and ladies.”

He turned to Edd. “My son and heir, Eddard Stark.”

Edd nodded respectfully. The boy had done nothing but stand still, yet he still cut an imposing figure that sent a wave of pride rolling through her, coupled with a lance of sudden pain aimed at her heart. He had put on a mask of lordship, wearing it with the same ease her lord father or Robb had once done. He was but three-and-ten, a year younger than Anya, and yet he seemed every inch a prodigal Stark of Winterfell. _Robb was fourteen too, when he rode off to war_ , a dark voice in her head reminded her. _And he was the Stark that lost Winterfell_.

Jon turned to his left but found an empty space. His brows furrowed in brief confusion as he turned backwards, glancing expectantly at Asher Forrester, who shrugged. Her brother sighed.

“I appear to be missing a brother.” he said dryly. He gestured for his bannermen to begin unloading their baggage and began moving forwards towards Sansa when the sudden howl of a wolf broke through the air, spooking several horses. There were panicked shouts and screams as a large black wolf near the size of Sansa’s prized palfrey barreled through the gates. Jeyne took a step backwards, eyes wide, and Cat moved ever so slightly towards her. To Sansa’s surprise, Anya stood still, staring at the beast with a curious look.

Jon’s voice cut through the air, stern. “Shaggydog. _Stay_.”

The wolf turned and growled furiously at Jon, who met its gaze, unimpressed.

“Where is Rickon?”

The soft hoofbeats of a lazy trot signaled their brother’s approach. He wore a thick woolen cloak, with a hood obscuring most of his face, the rest of his garb completely unremarkable save for the small direwolf crest on his breastplate. Unlike Jon, he had come armoured. Her brother dismounted, removing his hood to reveal an unruly mess of auburn curls and a fiery beard, neatly trimmed. He smiled at Sansa, somewhat unsure.

“Hello, sister.”

She moved for the first time since Jon’s arrival, wrapping her youngest brother in her arms. “You’ve grown,” she whispered. He had been _twelve_ the last time they had met, the top of his head barely reaching his shoulder. Now he was a man, tall and proud. 

Jon sighed, meeting the gaze of the Valemen who had gathered to see a spectacle so unlike what their chivalric knights and refined lords usually produced. “My brother, Rickon Stark,” he said, his voice resigned though there was an affectionate tone to it. “ _Magnar_ of Hardhome, wilder than his wolf, and most fond of dramatic entrances.” The lords of the Vale whispered at the curious title. A sure sign these Starks were more-than-half wildlings themselves, Sansa was sure they were saying.

“What my brother means to say is I am his most strong and capable right hand,” Rickon laughed, flashing a winning smile to those assembled. His voice was deep, deeper than her fathers had been, and his accent was far thicker as well. It reminded Sansa of the days when her lord father had held court in Winterfell, and the strangest of his bannermen had come to pay tribute to the ruling Stark from the furthest fringes of their domains. _Though those are hardly the strangest of the northern lords now_ , she thought.

When Rickon had been found by Ser Davos Seaworth and the Manderlys, he had been raised for years on Skagos. He had been returned to Winterfell long after Jon had taken it and Robb’s will had been read. Jon had written often to her then, telling her how he had offered to abdicate his lordship in favour of his trueborn brother _or_ sister, and she had ridden to Winterfell to see the result. The proposal was firmly rejected by the lords of winter. Rickon was _too_ wild, they said, half-a-savage who spoke Skagosi and the Old Tongue better than he did the Common, and a mere boy besides. Sansa, on the other hand, was a woman – and more crucially, tied to a foreign power. Jon Snow had the look of a Stark. More importantly, he had reclaimed the seat of the Starks and had proven his strength when doing so. That, to the northern lords, was far more important than direct blood claim. That Howland Reed and Maege Mormont then emerged with Robb’s decree, legitimizing him and in the process disinheriting Sansa and Arya, ended what little discussion was left. The North had loved Robb Stark, had rallied behind him with utmost faith in his cause. Its lords would follow his will, anything else be damned. _Even his own siblings._

“My oft-errant right hand,” Jon corrected.

Rickon laughed heartily. “Your right hand, nonetheless, old man.”

“ _Old man_? I’m only twelve years olde-”

“Where is Ghost?” Sansa inquired, used to the sight of her brother’s white wolf beside him. Besides, she was well-experienced in cutting through the bickering of men who still behaved like boys.

Jon smiled ruefully. “I left him at Winterfell, with Val and the children. Jo promised she would look after him.”

 _Jo_. Sansa still remembered that cursed feast, when her betrothal to Joff was announced all those years ago. Back then, Jon Snow had angrily declared that he would father no bastards, but that had been the words of a boy who dreamed of a red cloak and naught all else. Jon Stark had one natural child – _or more, if the rumours are to be believed_ – and he loved her the same as his other children. Joanna Stark, legitimized by royal decree, was this generation’s Bastard of Winterfell, though like her predecessor she was a Snow no longer. Unlike Jon she had grown up that way, never needing to endure the barbed taunts of the pages in the yard, Theon Greyjoy’s smirks, or Catelyn Stark’s cold gaze. _Or a sister who tried to pretend she wasn’t_ , _who reminded him they were merely half-siblings at every turn_. Sansa had seen her when she was but three, a girl whose face was long and whose eyes had been fierce.

“You should have brought her here with you.”

“Val wouldn’t have let me – she’s far too attached to the girls.” Jon grinned then, his eyes travelling from the now-cramped courtyard of the Gates back to Winterfell, to his beautiful spearwife and snow-covered children. “It was a feat convincing her to let me bring Edd.” His men had begun to disperse, as had Sansa’s with them. She offered her arm, which he took gracefully – the way she had taught him back when they were children playing at being adults. Rickon made a face but moved behind Jon dutifully. Their children followed a respectful distance behind as they entered the keep. “How is Lord Harrold?”

Sansa shrugged. “Harry is the same, kind, courteous, and most gallant. He asks about you a lot.”

“Does he?” Jon said with a small note of amusement. “What for?”

“Jon, you should know-” she paused, as a serving girl passed them. The Eyrie had been her home for over a decade now, and she was happy here – but one could never be too safe. A few moments passed before she continued. “Not all the lords of the south are in favour of your new… lordships.”

Her brother snorted. “If they have a problem, they can take it up with the Queen.”

“They know that.” Sansa lowered her voice to a whisper. “Daenerys’s reforms have not made her much loved amongst the high nobility either, especially now.”

“When have the high nobility ever been satisfied with anything?” Jon challenged, sneering slightly. His eyes darkened into an expression that rested foreign and ugly on his face. “These lords of summer stood by and watched as Mad Joff murdered our father, cheered when the Freys slaughtered Robb and his men, and laughed when Cersei Lannister tore the south asunder. Then, when the Others came, they let Northmen and Free Folk die by the thousands.”

“We rode to Winterfell, to your aid.” Sansa defended. “Harry was there with most of our knights, brave Yohn Royce, and proud Lady Waynwood. _I_ was there with you, Anya too.”

Jon’s expression softened. “Aye, you were. I’m sorry Sansa – forgive my words.”

Sansa kissed his cheek. “There is nothing to forgive, my lord.”

They walked for a few minutes up the winding stairs, and through the stone corridors of the Gates, in silence save for Rickon’s low humming of some tune she did not know. On the morrow, they would begin the ascent to the Eyrie. If the gods were good, Harry would arrive at the Gates a day after they had made it to the top, and he would reach the castle to meet them by the end of the week. Just before the silence became awkward, her daughter broke it.

“Nuncle Jon, what do cousin Arya and cousin Joanna do most days at Winterfell?” Cat asked, a perfect picture of childish innocence. Sansa sensed a trap. Jon seemed to feel it too, for she felt her brother tense slightly, his gaze narrowing slightly as he stared at Cat suspiciously.

“They sew and sing, as most girls do. Jo has a lovely voice, though gods know why she uses it on the sadder songs. Arya is very good at embroidery, almost as good as your mother. She’s very good on a horse too, near as wild as…” he trailed off, sadly.

Cat looked disappointed but brushed it off almost immediately. Her eyes, richer and deeper than Sansa’s or Harry’s stared intently at Jon like a wolf sizing up its prey, ready for its next pounce. Sansa braced herself.

“Do they hawk or hunt?” Her daughter’s voice was sweeter than summerwine.

“Yes-”

He was interrupted by Cat’s triumphant cry. “ _See_ , Mother?”

Jon looked at Sansa, who sighed with exasperation. He shrugged apologetically.

“What weapons do they use?” Cat asked excitedly. “I’ve heard spearwives are good at _everything_. Crannogwomen use nets and spear-forks.”

“My daughters aren’t spearwives!” Jon laughed. “Though they could to be…” he admitted to no one in particular. He glanced at Cat conspiratorially, shooting brief glances at Sansa, eyes sprinkling once more with mirth. “You could be, too. I could take you as my ward to Winterfell. Arya could teach you to shoot from her weirwood bow and sew with bone-needles, and Jo could teach you to hunt and hawk with that spear of her’s.” Her daughter’s eyes widened.

“I won’t allow it.” Sansa declared, her objection all but unheard.

“Or-” Jon continued, glancing at Rickon who grinned, clearly in on the joke at her expense as well. “You could go even further north with your uncle Rickon, past the Old Wall, to Hardhome.”

Anya, who had been silent throughout their exchange, finally spoke. “Hardhome is cursed.”

“It was,” Rickon allowed, grinning wolfishly. “But it’s my home now.”

“It’s perfectly fine, my lady.” Edd interjected, all lordly manners with a wide smile much like his father’s. “I’ve been many times, to stay with my uncle. Mayhaps one day, you could visit too.”

Anya blushed faintly. She had just turned four-and-ten a month prior, and Sansa was reminded that there would soon be squires fighting for her favour. Her status as the heiress to the Eyrie and the Vale of Arryn was sure see that – and she was by no means homely besides. As old as Sansa had been when Lord Petyr had brought to the Vale the first time, Anya was blossoming into a beauty, Harry’s aquiline nose and hair the colour of light sand setting her apart from her sisters. In a sky-blue dress that matched her eyes, and the white-and-gray ribbons meticulously running their way through her hair, she looked like the Maiden made flesh. Sansa would have to teach her soon of the cruelties found in the world of men, especially the beautiful monsters who came with comely faces and a long string of titles. Edd was no monster, she knew, but she would be remiss in her duties as a mother if she did not teach her daughter, nonetheless. Sansa would not leave her daughter to fend for herself in that world alone, as she had been all those years ago. _Your generation will not face the same things ours did_ , she silently promised.

“Anya, Cat, Jeyne,” she called. Her youngest was still a girl too shy to do anything but remain quiet, but she had listened intently, nonetheless. “Please show your cousin to his room.”

“Yes, Mother” her daughters intoned dutifully though Sansa did not miss Cat rolling her eyes, and from Jon’s smirk she could tell he hadn’t too. They led Edd down the corridor to the right, Cat’s questions about Winterfell and wildlings echoing through the air as they went.

“She reminds me-”

“-of Arya.” Sansa finished for her brother, who nodded. There was a subtle, solemn, melancholy in the way he had said it. She squeezed his hand. “I’ve put you next to each other. Come, I’ll show you.”

There were a few minutes of sad silence before Rickon said something once more, beginning another argument between her brothers that echoed loudly across the castle. Sansa smiled.

Over a decade had passed since peace had entered their lives. They had watched Rickon and their children grow, content and happy. Though she knew they were far too cruel, she prayed to the gods each and every night to let her children’s lives be filled with it.

They owed her that much, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. Before anyone asks, I will clarify the ages. This is set mid-314 AC, ten years after the War for the Dawn. 
> 
> Jon Snow/Stark is 31 years old; Sansa is 29, and Rickon is 19. Val is 34, and Harry Arryn is 32. 
> 
> Their children:  
> * Anya Arryn, Sansa and Harry’s eldest daughter and heiress to the Vale, 14 years old – named for Lady Waynwood.  
> * Catelyn Arryn, Sansa’s middle daughter, 11 years old – named for Cat Tully.  
> * Jeyne Arryn, the youngest Arryn sister, 9 years old – named for Jon Arryn by Harry, though in Sansa’s eyes for her friend Jeyne Poole. 
> 
> * Eddard Stark, son of Jon and Val and heir to Winterfell, 13 years old – named for everyone’s favourite headless guy.  
> * Arya Stark, daughter of Jon and Val, 12 years old – named for everyone’s favourite faceless girl. She is missing and presumed long dead. (But is she?)  
> * Joanna Stark, Jon’s legitimized daughter, 10 years old – named for… himself.  
> * Ben Stark, Jon and Val’s youngest son, 10 years old – named for everyone’s favourite missing man. 
> 
>   
> II. In the chapter, I hinted at some government restructuring in Westeros, hence Jon’s new titles as Marshal of the North. This will be explored in later chapters, but essentially the north is now very big, with the ‘Old North’ (lordships) and the ‘Far North’ (‘freeholds’ Beyond-the-Wall). This is a real source of tension with some of the southern kingdoms who are now wary of this new enlarged power. 
> 
> I’ve never really been happy with how fics or the cursed final season of the show have handled post-Others or Daenerys’ reforms. The notion that one ruler could turn medieval society on its head and have a functioning pseudo-democracy has always been ludicrous to me – and that’s not even mentioning Meereen and the “oh we’ll pull out of Meereen like we pulled out of the Middle East” approach D&D gave it. ASOIAF has always been my favourite fandom, and my favourite book series by far. What drew me, a huge history buff, to it was GRRM’s beautiful worldbuilding, and how highly vibrant and plausible this strange medieval society seemed (even with dragons and ice zombies!). Don’t get me wrong, my Daenerys’s reign does see meaningful change. I just reject the idea that this change can happen ‘because dragons’ or ‘because monarchy’ without consideration of institutional history in Westeros. I’ve tried to base potential reforms on the way medieval England under the Yorkists, Lancastrians, and Tudors moved towards modernization – centralization under a strong executive power, increased potential for social mobility, emergence of a ‘new gentry’ and educated class of civil servants. Obviously, this won’t be a documentary, and I intend to add my own twists to it drawing from other countries and cultures, along with building on the rich details given to us in A World of Ice and Fire and George’s other texts. I just want to show that medieval societies were full of interesting intellectual forays, and modern democracies could not have existed without them. You can’t just slap ‘elections’ on the Seven Kingdoms, elect a crippled boy and go “problems solved!”. Like I said, more on that in later chapters. 
> 
> III. Jon is a Targ, but no-one knows it (yet). There are plenty of hints in his children though. Pairings right now are in very early alpha and might change as my story goes. So, don’t assume any from just the tags unless I’ve explicitly mentioned them throughout the course of the story. For example, Jon and Val is a definite one because, well, they’re married and have kids. Jon and Sansa too. ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
>   
> IV. I don’t think the gods will listen to Sansa, sadly.


	2. Denys I

**DENYS**

Denys Arryn was tired.

He was already in a foul mood, having been awoken three hours before dawn to travel from his comfortable tavern bed outside Gulltown to Runestone, when news reached him that his steward had died. Faithful, clever, and stupidly brave Uthor Stone had ridden into the camp of a highborn knight accused of raping a farmer’s girl to confront him. Doubtless, the man thought that the dragon-sealed paper that enabled him to dispense the Queen’s Justice was good enough protection. _If I had been with him, maybe it would have been_. Good Queen Dany, one of Daenerys Targaryen’s many names amongst the smallfolk, had restored the protections of Aegon V – amongst them punishing rapers, highborn or otherwise. That knight, some Ser Eldrich, had nowhere to go but one of Lord Arryn’s sky-cells to rot for at least seven years, or until the blue called to him. He would not have dared attack an Arryn, though one of Gulltown, even if on account of a wealth from spices and silks and not the name itself. If he had so much as struck him, his head would have been taken by either an Arryn sword, whether one sworn to the Eyrie or one hired by his brother in Gulltown. _But what was a minor bastard to an anointed knight of the Seven?_

According to the hastily scribbled letter given to him by a landed knight's maester, Uthor had been near-decapitated by a single strike. He had been _just_ some Belmore bastard fathered on a tavern wench, but he had been a good man, and true. If his mother had been some lordling’s get and not an illiterate stablehand’s daughter he might have been Ser Uthor Stone, and singers would now be rushing now to compose the best song about Ser Uthor the Just, the man who had died trying to bring a false knight to task. Many were sung about the current Lord Stark, and bastards like his departed friend had aspired to be like the White Wolf of Winterfell, famed for his martial prowess and just lordship. But no songs were sung about men who were little more than members of the smallfolk themselves, especially those whose fathers were neither as wealthy nor as worthy as the late Ned Stark. Even so, Denys would see to it that there was justice for his bold steward. The penalty for attacking one of the Magisterium was death, and Uthor was a representative of the High Court itself. This knight, Eldrich, had exchanged the sky cells for a hangman’s noose. He had already filed a writ, requesting for a group of the Magisterium’s men from Gulltown to arrest the man. Sealed in the black wax bearing the Targaryen dragon from his personal stamp, he was sure that a host of their best would ride out as soon as it reached the hands of Maester Elys, ready to meet him on the road. That was his nature, he supposed. Though the loss had burned through his heart, Denys had learned long ago to numb the pain, neatly filing it away like he would one of his documents. There would be justice for Uthor. By the end of the week, Ser Eldrich’s body would hang in one of their many cages back in Gulltown, and Denys would smile as he passed it while walking through the courtyard of the Magisterium. Before that though, he had another matter to deal with.

Many of his kind preferred to deal with the disputes of the highborn to those of the peasantry. It was not difficult to piece together their reasons whether it be a simple ingratiation with the rulers of Westeros proper, or a boredom with the simple outcries of the smallfolk. Most of the time, the issues passed on to his order were trivial. Freedman Wat had taken a cow from Freedman Bryn, or someone’s daughter had eloped with a rival’s son, and so on. He had heard one of his fellows once declare the petitions of the commons _intellectually unchallenging_ to much laughter in the meadhall of the Gulltown Magisterium. While Denys could not deny that there were times when even the staunchest of minds could exhaust itself staring at a mountain of papers, most reporting minor problems, he nonetheless took pride in doing his duty. Before the Queen and her Prince Consort had taken the Iron Throne, only her distant ancestor Aegon the Unlikely had cared for the smallfolk, and even he had been restricted and limited by the whiles and whims of his retainers. Perhaps there was some truth to the Fifth’s words when he had declared that he needed a dragon to see his proposed reforms too, for they had died with him at Summerhall, most revoked in the reign of Jaehaerys II and the rest repealed by Tywin Lannister when he was Hand to the Mad King. Daenerys Targaryen had arrived in Westeros with dragons, and though two had perished in the War for the Dawn, the threat of Drogon the Black Dread come-again was enough to stifle all but the most zealous complaints. For the first time in the history of any of the Seven Kingdoms, justice was meted out by a council of appointed judges, rather than the impulses of lords or knights. A lord still had the right to imprison any he so pleased but putting them to death or banishment required a seal of approval only the Queen’s representatives could provide. The smallfolk could have their petitions heard, however inconsequential, and in doing so know that none were above the watchful protection of the Iron Throne and the justice it provided. The High Magisterium, comprised of its judges and councillors saw this through, travelling across the Queen’s domains to dispense provisions of justice. As a representative of this new, brighter order, it was Denys’ duty to see his office do what it was meant to – serving the queen’s justice, not just that of a few greater lords and gallant knights. And occasionally, most curious cries for help did make it to his candle-lit tables.

When reports of disappearing peasant boys reached his desk in Gulltown, he had saddled the first horse available and ridden out with two trusted men. They had travelled unmolested to Runestone on account of the red cloaks and midnight-black tunics that marked them as men of the Magisterium, coupled with the silver dragon-headed brooch that was pinned to his chest. He had chosen his companions specifically. Atharo had been one of the Queen’s youngest Unsullied, who had chosen to follow her and settle in Westeros. He had given up his bronze cap for a red cloak and was one of their order’s finest soldiers, still carrying the legionnaires’ spear that had seen him through the brutal Slaver’s Bay campaigns, the landing at Dragonstone, and the battle at Winterfell. Around the spear’s head, a ribbon red as a ruby was tightly tied. According to the former Unsullied, the dragon queen herself had given it to him as a favour on the long march from Yunkai to Meereen. His other comrade was another man of steel, Ser Allard Royce, a cousin to the Lord Royce they were about to meet. He was handsome where Denys and Atharo were plain, well-groomed and well-spoken besides. He was the first choice whenever dealing with the many magnates of the Eyrie, for his noble birth often diminished much of the animosity the highborn tended direct against those bearing a red cloak. Both Atharo and Ser Allard wore black scalemail, signifying their status as the keepers of the queen’s peace. Each man carried their own distinctive regalia – Atharo had his spear and Ser Allard wore bronze-coated vambraces, dotted with ancient runes. The Magisterium was strange in that regard, he supposed. It brought together men of high and low birth, lordlings and slave-soldiers, merchants’ sons and millers’ boys. _Or takes them from birth_. Many boys and girls had been left outside the doors of their Gulltown establishment by their smallfolk parents who could not afford to feed them. Others, usually the sons and daughters of smaller merchants in the city, were entrusted as wards of the order by their fathers and mothers who would oft be out at sea for months on end. Though the Magisterium was but ten years of age, many of those raised in their ranks had joined, serving as scribes or pages and proving to be loyal agents of the crown.

“We are near” Ser Allard spoke, breaking the silence they had been riding in for more than an hour. Both he and Atharo knew Denys was in a foul mood damped further by fouler weather, and they let him grieve in peace.

“Where are the guardsmen?” Atharo replied, his eyes scanning the muddy cobbles. “You Westerosi lords never leave the roads and villages near your castles unattended. I thought your family would be the same.”

Ser Allard shrugged. “This part of the Vale has never needed many watchful swords. We’re far enough from the bustle of Gulltown or the mountain clans on the Eyrie’s high road. Runestone has always been a safe destination for pilgrims and travellers”, he added proudly. _For now_. Denys was used to this kind of casual complacency. It was the sort of idealism that led to the death and destruction his kind had been created to prevent. Men of Westeros, particularly highborn ones, tended to assume persistency and permanence in all their affairs. Arryns would always rule the Vale, the Starks Winterfell, the Targaryens Westeros itself. When he was still half a boy, he had travelled extensively across what were then Seven Kingdoms on a small part of the share of his father’s inheritance he received at nine-and-ten. He and Uthor had crossed the mountain roads of the Vale into the muddy kingsroad of the Riverlands, still reeling from the War of the Five Kings. There, he had seen this sort of well-bred arrogance manifest itself firsthand.

Lord Bracken must have believed his only enemies Blackwoods when Gregor Clegane descended upon Stone Mill and its nearby holdfasts. Over a decade later the Bracken lands were still only recovering and the movement of many of their smallfolk, forced or otherwise, had reduced their power significantly. The Tullys must have thought the same of the Lannisters, only for invincible and untouchable Robb Stark to find Frey blades in his back and the backs of his bannermen. The infamy of the Red Wedding was still well-known, the Frey name cursed beyond belief. Singers sang of how the boy-king who never lost a battle and half his noble retainers were treacherously slain, and how the gods had their due when much of House Frey was found dead from a rare poison. What was left faced the cold vengeance of the North when Jon Stark and his wildlings had descended on the Twins, near extinguishing the line of wicked Walder Frey in a few days. _The North remembers_ , men said across the hearth-fires of the Vale. _Winter came for House Frey_. The Freys and Boltons had dared to believe that the same Starks who had ruled the North for the thousands of years since Brandon the Builder were capable of being displaced and paid for it with their total annihilation. Yet for every northern lord that had died in the Red Wedding, twenty more of their men perished beneath Lord Walder’s hall. One hundred Bolton men had died before Jon Stark drove his Valyrian sword through Ramsay Bolton’s rotten heart. The Riverlands were near subsumed by tides of broken men, who struggled to remember which banners had flown above their heads when they had arrived with the northern or western armies, who robbed and raped because they themselves had been robbed of whatever lives they once had. If one was a highborn lordling sworn to Stark or Lannister it was easy, nay, _essential_ to believe that there would always be Starks in Winterfell, that the goldmines of the West would always be held by a lion of the Rock. Lords liked to see themselves as confident, capable _cyvasse_ players, those sworn them mere pieces to be moved in a game that did not change. _The game of thrones_ , Lord Baelish had called it when holding court years ago at the Eyrie. The moniker stuck. Even men like his brother, men who were no lordlier than Atharo was, still believed it to be true. “The game never changes, Denys”, his brother had declared as if he were some wise maester of the Citadel. “The players change, aye, but the game never does.”

 _Does it not change because that is the way of the world, the will of the gods, dear brother?_ ” Denys had wondered. “ _Or is it because it is more convenient for those like us to believe those simple little lies_?”

In the eyes of men like lords Grafton, Royce, or Belmore, only men like or greater than them were capable of steering the vessels of change. The sea or sky mattered not, for they were the chosen, and even nature itself ought to bend to their will. _They_ were the ones who determined the fate of the world, the ones who conjured deathly tides or icy storms to crush any and all who deigned to resist them. It mattered little and less who was swept away, who truly paid the price for any transgression leveled against their glittering arms and noble names. It did not matter who sowed and harvested their many fields, who baked their bread or sold them their salt, who brewed their beer and fermented their wine, or who forged the glistening armour they were so proud of. They were but pieces in a game, something that would always be true because _such was the way of the world_. Men like Jon Stark played the game, moved the pieces. He had manned the Wall in its darkest hours, drove the White Walkers back, retaken Winterfell, and slain the Great Other itself, after all. It mattered not that black brothers had been doing the same for centuries, that dozens had died to the Others to give Jon Snow time to take Winterfell and become Jon Stark, that thousands more had perished both to retake the Stark castle and to man it during the War for the Dawn to allow the lord of winter to cut his way through the undead and achieve his crowning victory. Singers did not care to sing for their songs. Only tunes of the Last Hero, the White Wolf, the Winter Prince, were heard by the braziers in the Vale. Denys had nothing against Lord Stark, nothing but deserving admiration, but he was _tired_. Tired of the men who discarded those like Uthor but praised and loved Jon the Glorious, Jon the Great. He was tired of their hypocrisy. They loved men like Jon Stark because he represented this manufactured truth, this supposed reality – willingly or not. They hated those like stunted Lord Lannister, Hand of the Queen, because he stood against and disproved the world that existed in the limited confines of their combined imaginations.

But what did he, Denys Halfpeasant, an upjumped Arryn of Gulltown, worth little more than a lowborn merchant, know?

***

The gatehouse of Runestone was tall and ancient, bearing the inscriptions of the First Men who had raised the castle. Just above the portcullis, at the center of the arch, the iron balls and runes of House Royce were proudly carved into the weathered rock.

“Who comes?” A man-of-arms yelled from the battlements. He and his fellows glanced suspiciously towards them, having moved to watch them guardedly since their approach, like as not on account of the colours they wore. There was little love for men of the Magisterium amongst the halls of the great lords.

Ser Allard spurred his horse forwards, grinning as he took off his halfhelm. “Osbert, you old fool! Open the bloody gate!”

This Osbert stared, dumbfounded for a few moments. “By the gods!” he yelled. “Ser Allard! Lads, quick-” he turned to his men. “-someone let Lord Andar know his cousin is home!”

 _That was quick_ , Denys thought wryly. Ten years’ experience had taught men of the Magisterium to always bring with them a noble when seeking to deal with nobles. If they were related, like good Ser Allard was to Lord Allard Royce, then that was all the more in their favour. The portcullis was swiftly raised, and soon they were galloping through. The Royces had ruled as Bronze and High Kings in the Vale before Denys’ distant ancestor Artys Arryn, the Winged Knight, had beaten them into submission before the Andals and the Faith. That had not led to their influence subsiding in the affairs of the Vale – the library his grandfather had built back in Gulltown was half-filled with ancient tomes written by wizened old maesters piecing together the lineage and history of the house. Denys remembered reading them zealously when he was still a boy. His father had been furious, he recalled. “My sons should be able to count coppers and weigh spices,” he had declared. “Or at the very least, wield a sword and ride a horse well. I don’t want a bloody maester for a son, much less one with a bronze chain!”

His grandfather had smiled indulgently, winking at Denys in the way he had always done. He had served in the Citadel in his youth, earning a chain of yellow gold for his expertise in the realm of trade and commerce, before leaving to partake in the trade for Myrish lace and Lysene silk that had been particularly profitable at Duskendale in the early days of King Aerys’ reign and adding to his family’s vast fortune – as any good Gulltown Arryn should have done. Denys did not have a head for numbers, but he had always been interested in the history of laws and governance in the Vale and beyond. “You’ll find your way in the world,” Mallon Arryn had said, his grey eyebrows creasing with his kind smile when Denys’ father had left the room. _You were right, Grandfather. I did_. Though Denys was sure not even his grandsire, wise as he was, could have predicted Queen Daenerys’ dragons and Tyrion Lannister’s sharp mind.

His mind wandered from the conversation Ser Allard was having with his family’s men-at-arms, their laughter aimlessly echoing past his ears. Once they were in the courtyard of the first keep, past the bustle of soldiers and horses, a secondary gate opened to display the Runestone itself. In reality, the seat of House Royce consisted of two castles – not unlike the Eyrie, or many other castles nestled upon the mountains of the Vale. Back in the Age of Heroes, it had been not much more than motte-and-bailey, built of ironwood and weirwood, as was the way of most First Men keeps and castles. Constant Andal invasion had seen its timber slowly replaced by stone, its small meadhall of hero-kings and their shield-brothers turned into the grand greathall where its lords and knights now ruled. The Bronze Gate, the smaller gatehouse they had ridden through, led to a network of deep gorges than ran its way around the massive Rune Rock which the main castle stood upon. A single large bridge allowed entry into Runestone, one that Ser Allard had told him was called the First Path. Supposedly, it was the same path that his ancestors had used for millennia to cross into the castle, back when the gorges were still mires and flowing waterways that had protected the ancient Royces. Denys glanced across the bridge and saw the steep drop that awaited him, and his mount were they to be thrown off its side, unlikely as that was given that the bridge was wide and strong enough to support at least twenty horsemen riding side-to-side. He reckoned the Royces of their day were far better protected now by the rocky valleys than back when rivers, no matter how deep, had been the only natural defense of the Bronze Kings. Had High King Robar, the one the Winged Knight had slain at the Seven Stars, held the Runestone as it was toda, a castle as near-as-impenetrable as the Eyrie by his estimate, perhaps history would be full of the glorious deeds of Royces, not Arryns.

Once they had crossed the bridge, they were admitted into Runestone proper. Behind the Runewall, the towering battlements of ancient stone engraved with the various First Men wards, stood a castle-town steeped in history. Like the Graftons, the Royces had seen the benefit of over the towns and cities that were rarer the closer one got to the Riverlands. While the Vale was near as fertile as the Riverlands, its terrain was less ideal to support the farming hamlets that the Riverlords enjoyed dominion over. Their harvests were slightly less plentiful as a result, but Valemen settlements were thrice as defensible and much more capable of engaging in trade over the Narrow Sea.

“This is Outer Runestone”, Ser Allard said. Children bustled about through the narrow paths and alleyways that wound their way up the Rune Rock, packed with tall houses built of fine stone and ironwood. It was much larger than Denys had expected. There had never been any occasion for his family to travel to the seat of House Royce. “ _And old house, and proud,_ ” his father had once said. “ _But not near as wealthy as most believe. They would not buy our wares, even if they were interested enough to receive us_.”

“It is… different” Atharo said. “But it reminds me of Alsaeros.”

Denys glanced at him, not recognizing the name. “Where?”

“Alsaeros”, his companion repeated slowly, sounding out the name as if it were foreign to his tongue. “A small town in what you Westerosi call the Disputed Lands. I grew up there before…” he shrugged. “… before the Lyseni captain who captured it took us away.”

Denys and Ser Allard remained silent, though his other companion turned attentively to look at Atharo. It was not often any Unsullied, former or otherwise, spoke of their past before the Queen freed them and much it was much rarer for them to recall a past _before_ they became Unsullied. From his understanding, much of it was drilled out of them by harsh training and the practices of whip-wielding slave masters.

“I don’t remember much...”, Atharo admitted, as if reading his mind. “I do remember -” he sounded the word in Bastard Valyrian.

“Lemon trees.” Denys translated.

“Lemon trees.” Atharo repeated.

They rode in silence up the main street leading to the main keep atop the high hill – Inner Runestone, according to Ser Allard. A man-at-arms greeted them at the gate and directed them towards the great hall as they dismounted. “M’lord Royce is waiting for you inside, sers.”

“Many thanks, Sym”, Ser Allard replied with an easy confidence, his smile that of a well-loved man good at remembering people and names. His family’s retainer grinned back. They walked through the great bronze-laden doors of the keep, and found a vast, open hall. The distinctive arms of House Royce were displayed above the high seat where its ruling lords sat. Traces of First Man architecture were abundant. The roof of the greathall was made of painted ironwood, held up high with marble columns taller than three men stacked together. Stone statues of men Denys assumed were Royces of the past stood proud before each column, each one bearing bronze rune-engraved plate armour that must have been centuries old. _Or older_. Some wore bronze crowns, others carried shields of varying shapes and sizes, and all carried what looked to be swords of iron – not steel, curiously. Lord Royce sat on the high seat at the dais. Curiously, the dais and the throne itself appeared to be carved _on_ an ancient weirwood tree. Though its red leaves had long fallen off, the milk-white bark was near as distinctive as the solemn face carved above. Denys Arryn had seen many weirwoods in his travels. The one at Raventree Hall had been colossal and angry, and there had been many different expressions on the ones in the Isle of Faces. But the face of this one was different than any he had seen. Situated just above the lord’s head, it was silent, and judging. “ _Who are you?_ ”, it seemed to ask. “ _You, who would enter this hall of lords of a lineage so old even three maester’s tomes could not chart it fully_.”

Denys Arryn, of Gulltown. Denys Downlooker. Denys Halfpeasant. _Denys the Unworthy_.

“Coz!” Ser Allard smiled. He had reached the dais first, moving with the speed of a man who had been bred for battle. His hand clasped his cousin’s.

“Well met, Allard.”

Lord Andar Royce was a man of middling stature. Denys had expected him to be taller, broader, and comelier, like his cousin. Where Allard Royce had thick brown hair, Lord Andar’s was greying though they must have been of similar ages. While Allard’s cheeks were full of life, his cousin’s face was gaunt and grey, illuminated by pale eyes. And where Allard walked and talked like a man with purpose and in possession of a powerful voice, Lord Andar’s was soft and sad. He gently pulled his cousin into a warm embrace, before sitting down slowly once more. Next to him by the dais, in a smaller chair also carved of white weirwood sat a boy Denys estimated to be at least four-and-ten. He had not risen at their approach like the lord and viewed them with a reserved gaze. Lord Allard gestured to him. “My son and heir, Robar.”

“Gods, boy, you’ve grown!” Ser Allard laughed merrily. Young Robar Royce flashed him a smile, before becoming solemn again.

“As have you, cousin Allard.”

“I would hope so. Gods you look like your uncle Waymar, back when he was-”

“What is it you’ve come for, cousin?” Lord Andar interrupted. His smile had become a frown.

Allard coughed. “Of course. Apologies, Andar.” He glanced at Denys, nodding.

“My lord,” Denys began. “One moon ago, a petition was sent from a fisherman within your lands to the Gulltown Magisterium. It contained reports of missing boys from the smallfolk both within Runestone’s fiefs and the Waynwood lands as well.”

Lord Andar nodded, staring intently at Denys. “I’m sorry - I do not recognize you, my lord-”

“Denys Arryn, magistrate, my lord.”

The lord nodded slowly. “Arryn you said, ser? I’m afraid I never had the chance to meet you at the Eyrie in my youth.” _You think I’m a fraud, you mean_.

“I was not raised at the Eyrie, my lord. And I’m no direct relation of lords Jon, Robert, or Harrold.” It was a common question, and Lord Andar had been much kinder than most when asking it. “My father was an Arryn of Gulltown, as was his father, and his father before him. They were merchants by birth, not lords of the realm.”

“Ah.”

There were several moments of uncomfortable silence before Lord Andar spoke again. “And what do you need of me, to find these missing boys?”

“A few good men, strong and capable, my lord.” Denys said. He gestured to their small group. “There are only three of us, and only Ser Allard knows the terrain well enough-”

“-and I haven’t been back around Runestone for eight years, cousin.” Ser Allard finished.

“When you catch those responsible, will you be dispensing justice in the name of House Royce or the name of Daenerys _Targaryen_?” Robar Royce spoke up, his tone full of youthful challenge. “Why should our men fight and die on the orders of some Gulltown magister and his red-cloaked companions?”

“Cousin, we are sworn before gods and men to dispense the queen’s peace,” Ser Allard spoke swiftly and sternly, though his tone was also somewhat pleading. _These will not be the first lords we might have to beg and grovel to, nor the last_.

“And why must men of House Royce do it?” his cousin replied, his pale eyes fierce. “Can’t our queen descend upon them with her dragons – _dragon_ – or her legions of foreign killers and find these fisherman’s boys and _dispense justice_ on their captors herself?”

“Robar.” The boy’s father raised a hand. “Sit down.”

“Father you musn’t-”

“Be silent, child.” Andar Royce turned to Denys, watery eyes gazing into his own. “I apologize for my son, good sers, he is still but a boy. A good, dutiful boy, but a boy nonetheless.” He paused, and his eyes hardened. For the first time since they had arrived, Denys saw a glimpse of the man said to have held the dead at bay for nigh over an hour with only his father and four Runestone men. “But I do not disagree with him. Tell me, Magistrate Denys, why should your queen have more of what is mine?” His voice turned as bitter as the rusting iron swords his many ancestors bore in the empty hall. “More than half the men that rode with me to Winterfell died because she wanted to play politics in the south, to be Aegon the Conqueror come again with teats. For a year, we – the lords of winter and vale – fought the dead alone. It was only when we were near wights ourselves that the dragons came, like scaled carrion birds come to pick at what was left behind, to conquer those who had already been crushed. My father fought the Targaryens, he drove them back whence they came at the Trident, he-” the lord paused then, his voice choked with grief, pain, and a fear Denys had never heard before, deep and twisted. “-he died because Daenerys Targaryen was _too slow_.” His voice was wretched, and his eyes had gone vacant, like as not travelling hundreds of leagues back into the frosty north where the dead had risen in their thousands.

“I am sorry for your loss, my lord.” Denys said, though his voice came out soft and strained, the voice of a nervous Gulltown merchant not an Arryn falcon lord. 

“My brother, Waymar,” the lord continued as if he had not heard him. “They said he was killed by wildlings. Beyond-the-Wall. Fool Waymar, they called him, throwing away his future for naught but some savage’s spear in his back. But my mother cried for days, my sisters too. And Father… he was… he was never the same again. That’s why we went north, when the call came. Damn Lysa Tully, he said. Damn Petyr Baelish too. They said Waymar died because wildlings slew him, but Father never believed it, and Jon Snow’s letter was all it took to convince him with certainty. _We Remember_ , he said. We remember the duty of the First Men, the ways of the Children, the honour of serving in the Night’s Watch. _We remember the Others_.” His expression was pained, and fearful. His next words were little more than a whisper. “ _I remember too much_.”

Allard reached out cautiously, placing his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. He squeezed it.

“I was not at Winterfell with you,” he spoke gently. “I should have been, cousin, if only to make sure you came home alright.”

“Nothing will be alright again.” Lord Andar said miserably.

“I know, coz, I know. But you are Lord of Runestone now, not my nuncle. You have a duty to your people, small as they may be. Remember that. Lord Yohn would have done the same.”

There were a few more moments of silence. Andar Royce was still, his expression still vacant, but his brows furrowed. A few minutes passed before he looked up again. “You will have your men.” He stood up, and his son and two guardsmen began to follow. Then he paused, turning back slightly. “Magistrate Denys, cousin Allard?”

“Yes, my lord?” They said at the same time. The steel had returned to his stare.

“See to it that my people receive their due.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. Denys Arryn, and his two companions are two of my original creations. He will be a major character in this first ‘Vale arc’, though how so remains to be seen. I wouldn’t want to spoil it *winks*. He is an Arryn of Gulltown, who we are told about by Littlefinger in the books. They married into a merchant family in Gulltown, and are the richest branch of the family. However, this ‘tainted’ common blood means they are excluded from any considerations by the rest of the family. Denys is a guy who isn’t really a noble or a peasant – he’s somewhere in between. He’s educated, but like he points out, no-one’s particularly keen on hosting him either. 
> 
> II. Denys’ thoughts on this disconnect between the ruler's conception of the world and the smallfolk’s one is something touched on by GRRM. Some of the most poignant passages I’ve read were those focused on the the smallfolk when these invading lords and would-be kings come in and essentially tear their world apart. When we read fantasy, we are confronted by heroes who essentially change the world on a whim, and it’s tempting to view history this way as well; a big mistake, in my opinion. As Denys argues, though Jon Snow/Stark is a hero, he is no more or less heroic than the thousands who died to propel him to where he is. Our world is not a singular narrative propelled by the great and powerful men and women who happen to show up coincidentally, and neither is the Westeros I’ve imagined. I think GRRM would agree with me when I say the world of ice and fire is a world of nuance, not a world of ‘good' and 'bad' guys who are solely responsible for everything.  
>    
> III. A key aspect of what some historians have labeled the ‘Tudor revolution in government’ was the Justices of the Peace (JPs) in late medieval England. These were judges sent out to dispense justice in Henry Tudor’s name and the vanguard of a movement intended to centralise control and establish ‘uniformity of practice’ within England – no more local lords taking the law into their own hands. While not always successful, JPs showed ordinary folk that the law did care about them, that none were above it and, crucially, that it came from one source only – the king, later the king’s privy council, and later still the English government itself. This is the main inspiration for my Magisterium, guys like Denys sent out to essentially do the same for Daenerys. What makes this complicated is Westerosi culture – there are bits of it that resemble a late medieval society (commerce, clothing) and others resembling a high medieval society (warfare, chivalry, religiosity). While the Magisterium is an early modern institution in practice, there are still medieval associations attached to it. For one, armed bands of men in Targaryen livery going around to enforce the queen’s peace. Another would be honour in service; in a society constructed around chivalry and loyalty, something that attracts knights would be essential for a new institution like this one.  
>    
> IV. Runestone is never really mentioned in the series or its companion books, but I’ve always thought House Royce was one of the coolest, especially once we got a large portion of their history in AWOIAF. Most (if not all) of my description of Runestone is non-canonical, but I took inspiration from krassenka’s picture on the Wiki of Ice and Fire and Mont-Saint-Michel when coming up with its layout.  
>    
> V. That the lords of Westeros find Dany's ‘new men’ highly sus shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, they have already subsumed one key feudal right, and will probably take more. But like an English nobility decimated after the Wars of the Roses, the post-War of the Five Kings post-Walkers Westerosi nobles aren’t in a real position to challenge this either. They can only watch with resentment as their powers are eroded, though elite resentment is often dangerous in and of itself… as we may soon see. 
> 
> VI. A few cheeky references some book readers might recognize. Denys mentions his grandfather making a fortune in Myrish and Lysene fabrics at Duskendale, a reference to the last Lord Darklyn’s wife Serela of Myr. I see the Essosi cities as analogous to the Italian city-states and communes, and so in my headcanon all these foreign wives end up facilitating the same exchange of culture that birthed the English Renaissance. A lot of throwbacks to various Royces of the past, including our boy Waymar who died in the prologue of AGOT and his dad Bronze Yohn who the show did so dirty.  
>    
> VII. Lord Andar is a figure in canon, though we don’t know much about him at all beyond the fact he exists. He is the son and heir of Yohn Royce, who in this fic died at Winterfell fighting the Others. Andar suffers from what a modern maester skilled in the arts of the mind (a psychiatrist) might label extreme PTSD, as you do when you return from fighting literal death itself. 
> 
> Really appreciate your time – I will read your comments!


	3. Anya I

**ANYA**

The ascent back up to the Eyrie was easier than their descent had been, though they were lucky that they had reached the top before the summer storm-clouds rolled in and split the sky with lightning. The clear skies of the Vale had darkened, the sun obscured by torrential downpour. Anya had never liked the dark. It brought back to her mostly forgotten memories of a dark cellar room, shrill screeches in the night, and the sound of steel. _Winterfell_. _Mother’s home_.

Her cousin had spoken the entire way up the mountain about his home, of its vast godswood and tall towers. Edd Stark had never been south of the Neck before in his life, but from the relaxed way he spoke and sat on his mule, it was as if he had been born and raised in the Vale of Arryn. Winterfell had been burned thrice in its thousand-year history, Edd said. All three times by the Boltons – the lords who had taken a flayed man for their sigil. But each time, it had been rebuilt by the Starks, stronger than before. And his father had wiped out House Bolton once and for all, he finished proudly. Cat and Jeyne had listened intently, enchanted by tales of the wild wolfswood and daring Starks who ruled it. Anya was decidedly less so. Edd Stark could keep his burned-and-rebuilt fortress of ice, she thought, her Eyrie had never been claimed by any except a dragon queen. And, as Cat would say with her tongue out, dragons were _cheating_.

Uncle Jon had piqued Anya’s interest, though. Their mother did not speak of him as often as one might have expected, but there was always a smile on her face when she did. Her lord father, on the other hand, spoke lengthily about the exploits of the Wolf of Winterfell with an almost envious expression on his face. They were alike, Harry Arryn oft said loudly to his wife and daughters, lords paramount of one of the last _free_ kingdoms of Westeros. Then Father’s expression would darken and his demeanour would become harsher, and he would speak of how Queen Daenerys was a foreign tyrant, come to rob the lords of the Seven Kingdoms in a hushed voice. This he only said to Mother and Anya. He would run his fingers gently through Anya’s hair as he sounded words that might had seen him thrown in one of the dragon queen’s black cells, or worse. _Father loves my hair_ , she thought proudly. Though she knew he also loved her sisters, Anya was the first of his trueborn children, his favourite. _His heir_.

There were no longer seven kingdoms, not truly. When Daenerys Targaryen had seized the Iron Throne with her long-lost prince, only three were still whole. The dragon queen had taken the rest for her own. The Tyrells in the Reach had exhausted the might of Highgarden fighting for then against House Lannister. The lions of the Rock were all but extinct, with only the current Lord Lannister a survivor in the main line – and he had come as a supporter of House Targaryen. The Riverlands were ravaged by war, or so Anya’s septa said, and her mother’s Tully ancestors had never been loved by their lords bannerman the same way her lord grandfather and his house had been in the frigid north. That was one of Mother’s first lessons, when she and Anya’s lord father had allowed her to sit by his side as he held court for the first time. “ _Remember, sweetling_ ”, she had said, her voice as sweet as it was soft. “ _No matter how extensive your lands are or how full your coffers, it is the love your lords bear for you that is the true source of your power._ ” Even when Winterfell was burned, the Starks murdered, the lords of the north still rose once again in their name. _Even for a bastard_ _boy_. Anya had met some of the lords sworn to House Arryn. They varied in colouring and character. Would they do the same, for her or her sisters?

“ _But mother,_ ” Anya had said. “ _What about your knights?_ ”.

“ _Knights, sweetling?”_ Her lady mother had asked, amused. Lady Sansa Arryn was so beautiful when she smiled, everyone said. All the lords and ladies of the Vale loved her, perhaps more than they loved even her lord father. Anya promised herself that she would one day be as confident, as graceful, as her.

“ _If I had Winged Knights as good with sword and lance as Ser Aemon the Dragonknight or Selwyn of the Mirror Shield, would they not keep me safe? Ser Podrick is a very good swordsman, Father says._ ” Anya had added.

Her lady mother’s smile had remained, but it turned sad. It was a while before she spoke again. _“My brother had the best beside him and they were not even knights, not truly._ ” Anya did not need to ask which brother she meant. Robb Stark, she knew instantly. The Young Wolf, treacherously slain. Father spoke about him too, about how her great-aunt Lysa Tully had forbidden the gallant knights of the Vale from riding to his aid. Foolish, he called it, the work of fools and craven ladies. Her mother stared intently at her, blue eyes meeting blue. “ _Not even a knighthood, a perfect sword or a pretty shield can hide a man’s true nature, Anya dear. Remember that._ ”

Anya had seen the way her lady mother glanced carefully at new men who introduced themselves in the Eyrie, be they knights or lords. She was quick at assessing men, and quicker still at disarming them with naught but a smile and a few sweet words. Mother was no liar, no spider, but neither was she a foolish, giggling lady either. She was fast when sensing threats, and slow to trust any save for her own family or their immediate retainers. “ _My sweet, shrewd Stark lady_ ” Father had called her once, laughing. “ _I didn’t realise honourable Ned Stark raised his daughter to be so cold, so calculating._ ”

“ _He didn’t_.” Mother had replied simply, and that had been the end of the conversation. There were parts of her lady mother’s past she would not talk about, and that was one of them. According to Septa Ena, though, Mother had arrived at the Vale disguised as a bastard and her lord father had courted her not knowing she was a daughter of Winterfell. When Anya had asked her sweet septa _whose_ bastard she was disguised as, the kind woman had pursed her lips and shook her head. “It’s not my place to say, Anya.” When Anya had asked her lady mother directly, she shook her head and told her never to speak of it again. Whoever had taught her to hold court must have been frightfully clever, Anya thought. Her lady mother was always quicker than the rest, always one step ahead. _Like a bird_ , Anya thought. _Like the sigil of our house, a falcon soaring high above and far beyond the beasts of the land._ She wore a solemn, stoic expression with the same ease she wore one of her sky blue and cream dresses. She was wearing both now, when they arrived back above in the Eyrie.

“Lady Arryn. Welcome back home.” The white-bearded High Steward of the Vale greeted them at the Crescent Chamber. “Lord Stark, a pleasure.”

“Thank you, Lord Nestor.” Mother smiled but glanced at the men standing behind him. “Ser Donnel, I had not thought to see you here.” The homely man in dark green must be Ser Donnel Waynwood then, Anya recognized, the Knight of the Bloody Gate.

Ser Donnel smiled, though Anya thought it was tight and cold. “I arrived yesterday, my lady. I thought I would meet you at the Gates before coming up the Giant’s Lance, but Lord Stark arrived before I did, and I thought it best not to come between your two families.”

Mother smiled brightly, though her hand had tightened around Anya’s. “I see. Thank you for your consideration, my lord. I hope lodgings have been arranged for you already.”

“They have, my lady.” Lord Nestor spoke up immediately. “We were thankful, nonetheless, that Lord Stark’s men chose to lodge below in the Gates.” He smiled apologetically. “With the Arryn guard, the Brotherhood, and now Ser Donnel’s knights in the castle, there might have been little room otherwise.” Her mother’s grip grew tighter. To her left, she saw insufferable Edd Stark smirk. We could fit an entire army in Winterfell, his eyes seem to say. How many could your seven towers hold? _Five hundred men-at-arms_ , Anya mentally replied. _And that’s all we need, for the Eyrie is impregnable._

***

Once they were given refreshments, her family moved from the Crescent Chamber past the High Hall to her lord father’s solar in the Moon Tower. Most of the immediate Arryn household lodged in the Moon Tower, even Father’s mistress, though her quarters were situated at the bottom of the tower and not the top. Anya, Cat, and Jeyne’s rooms were in the Maiden Tower with their elder sister. Alys Stone was Father’s firstborn, and though her mother had been some nameless serving girl, Father loved her as such all the same. Anya knew she had three other siblings who did not share the same lady mother with her. Sweet, lovely, Alys Stone was the eldest and the kindest of her siblings by far, trueborn or otherwise. Even though she did not have a large dowry or potential inheritance to speak of, on her sixteenth nameday, knights and squires had come begging for her favour. The next was a half-brother, Hal Stone, born to a merchant’s daughter. Father had never brought him to the Eyrie, and he lived with his mother’s family in Gulltown. He was her lord father’s only son, but he would never inherit the Arryn name or titles – that, Father had promised her lady mother before her eyes. The youngest of his bastards was Esme Stone, though she was older than Cat and Jeyne. She shared her quarters with her mother in the Moon Tower on account of the fact that Lady Marsella Stone was herself Lord Waynwood’s bastard niece. Mother allowed her in the Eyrie, so long as she knew her place. It was not Anya’s place to pass judgement; Lord Harrold Arryn had always been a doting, dutiful father and husband. It mattered not how many children he sired, so long as he loved Anya, her lady mother, and her trueborn sisters the most - and that, he did.

Marsella Stone had passed them at the base of the Moon Tower, and she and Anya’s lady mother exchanged a brief smile. Lady Sansa Arryn was always kind, even to those she had no reason to like or love. Father’s mistress was likely on her way to Esme’s embroidery class, with Lady Morea, the Lyseni girl their steward had hired to teach them how to sew fine Essosi lace and patterns. They climbed the marble steps of the Moon Tower, passing the moon-and-falcon banners and shields that were displayed at every turn. Her father’s solar was a place Anya loved, one where he had told her stories of winged knights and fair Arryn maids above a roaring hearth. Her mother had told her under Anya’s great-uncle Lord Jon Arryn, it had been decorated with many tapestries of Arryn lords of the past. Anya’s distant cousin Lord Robert, a sickly boy, had them removed when he became lord – though he died in his sleep not long after. Her lord father had brought some of the fine tapestries back, though the others now decorated some of the other rooms in the keep. He was less ostentatious than Jon Arryn, though far more than little Robert, preferring those finely spun depictions of battle and chivalry to Lord Jon’s ancestral heroes. Above the great bed where her father slept when he took residence in the Eyrie, the Falcon Knight ran his lance through the last High King. Lord Harrold’s room was full of old suits of armour and shields on display, most prominently the ones from back when he had still been Harry the Heir. His old shield with its quartered falcons of Arryn, Waynwood wheel and red-and-white Hardyng diamonds rested above the marbled mantlepiece of the fireplace. It had been the shield he had carried north, he told Anya proudly when he caught her staring it at the first time, the shield he carried when fighting the dead. Even now the notion of dead men rising seemed strange to Anya, near-inconceivable, but her lord father and lady mother had given her cause to doubt them – especially when Father’s Arryn-blue eyes became haunted and his constant smile faded from his face when he spoke of Winterfell. As they entered the room, a girl with light hair was stirring the flames with a poker on the cream-and-blue cushions next to the hearth. She stood up as they walked in giving Anya a wide smile that reached her eyes, the colour of the sky.

Anya threw herself forwards, wrapping her in a hug. “Alys!”

Alys Stone laughed, a melodious sound, hugging her back tightly.

“Girls.” Her lady mother said, exasperated, but in good humour. “You’ve only been apart for a day.”

“A day too long, Lady Arryn.” Alys replied, smiling respectfully. “I trust the journey was not too difficult?”

“It was quite nice, my dear. I trust you were well, while we were at the Gates?” Her mother had reached forwards, pulling her sister into an embrace as well, though she was much more ladylike while doing it. Alys Stone’s mother had been a girl in the service of House Waynwood, and she had been sent away at birth. Though Anya had been born less than a year after her parent’s marriage, her mother had thought it would be good for her to have other girls around her in the Eyrie. Alys Stone had been one of her own choices, along with Rhea Royce and other daughters of great Vale lords, wards of Lady Sansa Arryn. Anya loved Cat and Jeyne more than anything but Alys was her eldest sister, the one who had held her hand as they danced around the gardens, helped her sew the dresses that ripped when they did, dried her tears and cleaned her scrapes and scratches when she fell. She had always called her sister, not _half_ -sister, or bastard, as some squires were wont to do. Once, she had been dragged to her lord father’s chambers after getting into a scuffle with Ser Mychel Redfort’s squire, taking him to task for having done just that. Father had laughed, slung her over his shoulder and patted her head while giving the boy a stern word. Though her lady mother had chastised her for being unladylike, she had smiled nonetheless - rather wistfully, Anya thought.

“I was, my lady. If I may, might I inquire why you summoned me here upon your arrival?”

Mother smiled. “I thought Anya might want you here – and she did.” She paused, nodding her head. “But you are right, that is not the sole reason.”

She turned to her brothers then, uncles Jon and Rickon. “My husband’s daughter,” she introduced. “Alys Stone.”

Nuncle Jon’s solemn expression broke into a small smile. “A pleasure, my lady. My sister writes often about how good of an influence you are upon her daughters.” Cat huffed behind him, and Alys grinned.

“I had hoped Harry would be here before we had this conversation,” her mother began. It was most unusual for all of Anya’s sisters to be together in a room of _serious_ conversation, she thought. But Jeyne was nine now, the age Anya had been when her father had let her sit beside his weirwood chair in the High Hall – she supposed it was not too strange. “But he would want us to begin, nonetheless. Some of this, I have spoken to your uncle Jon about” she glanced at him, and he nodded. She turned to Anya and Alys. “You girls are grown now, young women in truth. I couldn’t be prouder. Dear Alys, I had hoped, perhaps selfishly that you would be here in the Eyrie for your sister always-”

“I would want for nothing else, Lady Arryn”

“-but you are your own woman, and it would not be fair nor right to ask that of you.” Her lady mother finished. “You deserve to find a good lord of your own choosing, your own keep, and your own little children. They could grow up here, with Anya’s, if you wanted. I – and Anya – would be most glad if that were to be so.” Alys nodded, dutifully. “Your father has said that he would prefer it if you married into the North or the Vale, for Dorne is too far, and the other kingdoms are, well, no longer kingdoms – not truly. You’ve lived here at the Eyrie your entire life, and the gods have been kind for you’ve brought much laughter and sweetness into our lives. But it is time you saw the world. I, with your lord father’s blessing, had already planned to ask my brother Lord Stark to take Cat and Jeyne to ward at Winterfell.” She continued but was interrupted by Cat’s excited squeal.

“Truly, Mother? But you said- I didn’t think- I-”

Her lady mother sighed. “Catelyn Arryn.” Behind her, their uncles snickered. Cat quieted, but she did not wipe the wide smile off her face. Mother continued. “We thought it might be good if you were to accompany your sisters there, and perhaps meet some of the northern lords. Lord Stark has assured me that he will not force any on you, and he will try to help you make the best choice. Any lord would be lucky to have you, and we must ensure that you yourself find a good man. If his heart is half as true as yours’s is, then I will be content.”

Her sister sat still for a few moments. Anya could tell she was struggling to compose herself. “Lady Arryn I-” she swallowed. “I never thought fate, nay, _you_ could be this kind, this good, to me.”

“You are all but my daughter, Alys, a sister to my Anya and Cat and Jeyne. I have loved you as one, always.” Her mother said, gently. She embraced Alys, who had begun to cry, smiling softly. Anya’s own vision had begun to blur, but the tears she shed were not ones of joy. It was selfish, she knew, selfish to want Alys to stay. She deserved a life of her own, outside of the shadow of ladies Sansa and Anya Arryn. In the Vale, she would forever be Alys Stone, the by-blow of some nameless serving girl and a great lord - _the_ greatest - but a bastard, nonetheless. In the North, she might be Lady Alys Tallhart, or Lady Alys Forrester, or mayhaps even Lady Alys Umber or Manderly or Karstark. Who was Anya to deny her that? _Her sister_ , _her trueborn sister_ , a selfish voice whispered vindictively in her mind. She caught Edd’s curious, uncomfortable gaze, and wiped her tears angrily. She was the daughter of Ser Harry the Heir, the daughter of brave lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale. The blood of falcon knights and winter kings ran through her veins. She would not cry, no matter how wretched she felt now. _You’re my sister, Alys_ , she thought desperately. _You can’t leave me here, alone_. Anya Arryn was the proud daughter of a great lord and lady, the scion of two bloodlines so old and so pure they could boast the likes of Bran the Builder or Hugo of the Hill as direct ancestors. She could sing, sew, dance, and dress well. She loved to read and knew more on the histories of houses and the movements of men than even Maester Eldan of the Eyrie, the wisest man in the Vale. She was courteous, just, and brave. That’s what the poets and singers said.

In that moment, she was nothing more than a selfish, scared, and silly girl.

Mother began speaking again, after offering Alys her handkerchief of white-and-grey Lyseni silk, though Anya barely heard her. “Cat and Jeyne, you should begin packing your things now. Your Uncle Rickon needs to return to Hardhome sooner or later, though he will go by way of Winterfell. We will wait for your father to arrive, so you may say goodbye, and then you two should be off.” Mother smiled again. “Be good for your nuncles, and Lady Val.”

“Yes, mother.” Both her sisters said – Cat grinning, and Jeyne solemn but visibly excited. _Traitors_ , Anya thought, infuriated. She scowled. That they were all leaving her was bad enough, but smiling as they did so made it that much worse.

Her lord uncle spoke up then, Jon Stark’s voice resonating with the power of the thousand lords of winter who lived through him. “I will stay here at the Eyrie for a few more weeks. Edd should see more of the south. The Harvest Moon is not for several moons, and my presence is not immediately required in Winterfell, not with my wife there.” He turned to Alys, a grin lighting up his handsome face, though in that moment nothing could have been uglier to Anya. “You could come with me then, Lady Alys. That would give you another month or so with your sister.” Alys smiled, turning to Anya, though it quickly faded. She must have started crying again. She saw nuncle Jon glance at her then, full of wide grey-eyed concern, and then Edd, and then Mother too, and-

She couldn’t take it. Hot tears of anger rolled from her eyes, near as much a torrent as Alyssa’s waterfall, quickly followed by tears of shame. She was supposed to be Lady of the Eyrie, the next Defender of the Vale. Now, she was nothing more than a petulant child, upset that the sister she loved most was going away from her for good. She stood up abruptly. “Please excuse me.” she said, her voice cracking. She lifted her sky-blue skirts and fled the room.

She heard her mother sigh, sadly. “I’ll go after her.”

“No, my lady. It should be me. I’ve upset her, and I-”

Anya did not stay to listen to the rest. She ran down the winding step bumping into half-a-dozen serving girls in the process, who looked at her, concerned. She sprinted out of the Moon Tower, intent on the small garden grove, but then stopped. That was where Alys would go, first. She turned the other direct and ran instead for the Maiden’s Tower. Instead of hiding in her room, she threw open instead the ironwood door to Alys’. It was far simpler than her father’s bedchamber, far simpler than hers too. A single painting hung above her bed, the portrait of Jeyne Arryn - not their sister, but the Maiden of the Vale. The one who had never married, who had raised her banners for her cousin Rhaenyra when her brother usurped her throne, the one who had ruled alone. Anya crawled beneath it, to sit above the furs on Alys’ bed. When she was a girl, and the cry of those trapped in the distant sky-cells frightened her still as they frightened Alys, they would huddle together here. That had been long ago now, and Anya had rarely cried since. _Until today, you fool girl_. She put her head in her hands and wept.

It must have taken well over an hour for Alys Stone to find her and by that time, the hems of her dress were ripped, and she was panting with exertion. Perhaps she had gone through the entire castle trying to find her. _Good_ , Anya thought cruelly. _She deserves it, for abandoning me_. Her sister had wrenched open the ironwood door dejectedly, eyes full of defeat, only to widen at the sight of the girl with messy hair sitting silently on her bed. She smiled ruefully. “Oh, Anya.”

“Go away. Go find your northern lord.” _Please don’t_. Anya glared at her, clenching her fists. She must have looked half a wildling then, but she didn’t much care anymore. Brandon Ice-Eyes, one of her mother’s forbears had been named. She tried to turn her gaze into that of winter itself, into blue frosty shards of ice.

Alys nodded solemnly, but she did not step away. A long silence passed, each staring at the other. Anya looked away first. “Your hair is messy.” Alys finally said. “Might I braid it?”

Anya let out a drained sob, then another, and then she was crying heavily again. _Stop crying, you stupid girl._ Alys stepped towards her, slowly, taking a seat beside Anya on the bed – _her_ bed. _She belongs here_ , Anya thought. Alys was of the Eyrie and the Vale, of their father’s blood, of the mountains and the morning mists. She was her sister.

Alys gently touched her shoulder, rubbing it slightly, before bringing her into a fierce hug. “I won’t leave, if you want me to stay.”

_I do_ , Anya wanted to yell. But even then, her mind knew it was not right, addled as it was with weakness and emotion. “You deserve a better life, Alys,” she said instead. “A kinder one than you might have here. I would be a terrible lady and an even worse sister if I commanded you to stay here with me.”

Her sister smiled wanly, though Anya saw relief in her brown eyes. “You would be.” she agreed. “Though one could say you were terrible enough already, making me run half-mad across the castle.” Anya scowled, and hit her lightly on the shoulder.

“Don’t push it,” she said dryly. Alys giggled. Her sister turned and opened a small chest by her bedtable, where she kept her trinkets. She pulled out a small necklace, a simple thin thread of silver, and put it around Anya’s neck.

“It fits.” Alys said triumphantly. And it was beautiful. Though it was far simpler than the chokers and the tiered layers of jewels Anya had seen the ladies wear at court, there was something far more majestic about it. The small silver chains held a half-moon pendant, made of a milky white gemstone. “I had it made for you a while ago,” Alys explained. “Your mother’s friend, Lady Myranda, she’s rather good with these things. Lord Nestor bought a barrel’s worth of moonstone a while back, though he never ended up using it, so she suggested I use it. What more fitting, for a lady who wears the moon-and-falcon of Arryn so beautifully? I didn’t know when exactly I was going to give it to you. I thought your nameday, perhaps, but today seems better than ever. I-”

“Thank you.” Anya wrapped her in another hug. “Alys I-”

“No matter where we are,” Alys said, “I will always love you, Anya. You are the dearest of my kin.”

Anya nodded. She did not release Alys from the hug for a few long moments. “Your children must ward at the Eyrie,” she said finally. “And no matter who your lord husband is, he will not prevent you from visiting me, or I you. You could marry Edd Stark for all I care, and gods forbid he try stopping you, or I will march to Winterfell myself.”

Alys laughed. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Perhaps I am, perhaps I’m not. My point stands.”

“I will be riding off to be married, Anya. I’m not riding to war.”

“You won’t be until my lord uncle returns.” Anya stood up immediately. “Gods, we don’t have much time.”

“A few moons,” Alys reminded. “We still have time yet. You ought to say goodbye to Cat and Jeyne, they will be leaving in a few short days.” _I must_. Though Cat was… _Cat_ , Anya loved her fiercely, as she loved Jeyne. She pulled Alys up with a ferocity that startled her sister.

“So much planning, so much to do…” she murmured under her breath as she pulled a laughing Alys out of the room and sped down the corridor with her.

They had a few scarce days left before they would all be dispersed. They had to make the most of their remaining time, and gods forbid anyone try to prevent them from doing so.

High in the halls of the Eyrie, they were untouchable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. That was a hard chapter to write. I tried my best to pick up the young (spoiled) Sansa vibe, while making sure that Anya is her own person as well. She might seem a bit unlikeable now but consider that she has just turned 14 and is now seeing her sheltered, idyllic world torn apart. More on that later.
> 
> II. Sansa's pretty good at politics, and stuff. 
> 
> III. Alys Stone is actually a canon character, though she is an infant in AFFC. She is Harry the Heir’s eldest bastard, born to a woman in the service of his foster family. While book Sansa does not seem excited at this prospect, and some may say it is out of character for her to allow Harry’s bastards (and mistress!) to reside in the Eyrie, I think her perspective will be different – more on that soon. Sansa is effectively running the Vale, because Harry is a Robert-type; likeable, but completely useless at governance. She can’t dismiss Marsella Stone because she is a Waynwood girl, and by fostering Alys and Esme Stone, she gets kudo points like her mother did for ‘allowing’ Jon to be raised at Winterfell. Notice how she doesn’t let Harry’s son anywhere near the Eyrie. Obviously this relationship isn’t entirely political or transactional. I like to think that her positive experiences with Sandor in the earlier books and (hopefully) Jon post-ADWD will make her far kinder to bastards and broken things in general. 
> 
> IV. A lot of people think Harry will be a Robert clone, abusive and all that. I disagree, because I think that unlike Robert, what we know of Harry the Heir so far seems to paint a status-driven if arrogant boy. He gets to flaunt that he’s the heir to the Eyrie but everyone knows how tenuous that claim is. He also seems to be genuinely motivated by chivalric ideals like knighthood, though in a warped way where only highborn women of equal (or greater) status are deserving of respect. Robert was born a powerful lord, then the king. He didn’t have to worry about these things. Now imagine Harrold ex-Who?dyng finding out his wife is actually Sansa Stark, of a much more direct bloodline. Plus, her brother is now the most powerful lord in the realm. If anything, Harry seems more the smash-and-dash type than the beat-your-wife crowd. I could be wrong though, but George will have to release TWOW before I concede that point.


	4. Jon I

**JON**

“She has _summoned_ me?”

Sansa’s maester coughed uncomfortably. “Yes, my lord. We received the letter by a raven sent directly from the capital this morning.” At nine-and-forty, Maester Eldan was an aging man with prominent flecks of grey running through his tousled brown curls. Sansa placed much confidence in his person, as did many of the lords and ladies in her court. Jon was less inclined to do the same, though he realised that might have been less a result of the man himself than a more general prejudice against the order he served. It was not entirely fair, he knew, thinking of wise old Maester Aemon and his friend Sam who had helped raise his children at Winterfell when he or Val were absent. But that the men in grey had dismissed his calls for help all those years ago left a sour taste in his mouth when he thought of their kind, made sourer still by the books and manuscripts some maesters were now writing to _explain_ or even _disprove_ the hard-fought battle at Winterfell. Jon stared down at the scroll. Though the seal was broken, it was the unmistakably dark crimson wax of House Targaryen, made all the more obvious by the three-headed dragon stamped firmly on the material. 

“I had hoped to see Lord Harrold before I departed the Eyrie-” Jon began, but Sansa cut him off before he finished. _She has a habit of doing that_ , he thought wryly.

“Harry has been held up near Ironoaks,” she said. “He could not refuse his Waynwood cousins. Jon, if the Queen has asked for you, it would not do to keep her waiting. Most queens are not known for their patience, Daenerys Targaryen less so.”

“The Eyrie was the furthest south I intended to ever go” Jon said, scowling. “I have no use for the viper pits of King’s Landing and Summerhall.”

Sansa placed her hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps, but you must still go. The message was clear.” She tensed. “I like it not, either. Starks of Winterfell are not made for the ambitions of southern lords and ladies.”

Jon sighed. “The queen does not mean me harm, Sansa. She is no Joffrey.”

That she mistrusted Daenerys was no surprise. After all, she had called for Sansa’s head upon her landing in Westeros. Sansa Arryn was, and always would be a threat to House Targaryen, and there were many who had sought to wed her to the queen’s nephew in her place. And where Lord Commander Snow might have been a minor convenience, Jon Stark was perhaps the most major one. He was of the north, of House Stark, and his father had been responsible for the death of her’s, and that of her brother the Prince of Dragonstone. This, the Lord of Winterfell knew well. _You know nothing, Jon Snow_ , a flame-kissed spectre long-dead but still-there, _always_ there, whispered from the farthest corners of his mind.

“You don’t know that,” Sansa snapped. “Father said the same thing about King Robert and look where that led him.” Her voice took on a pleading tone. “Jon, you must go, but you cannot trust her or any who serve her. Bring your men with you – all of them.”

“She has a dragon, Sansa. If she wanted me dead, I would be. She need not summon me to her court to kill me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Then she has some other purpose for you. Whatever it is, you must be ready.”

“My lady, if I may,” Maester Eldan spoke up. His hand was placed on his chin, and the man thoughtfully glanced at Jon. He liked it not. “The queen might be looking for a new member on her council, or perhaps even a new Hand. Even in the far north, your lordship must have heard the rumours that Lord Tyrion plans to retire to Casterly Rock soon.”

Sansa nodded, though she was now glowering. “Besides Harry and Dorne, there are no other lords paramount. The memory of her husband’s mother is enough to bind Dorne to her cause, and the Vale is close enough for her various eyes in Gulltown. It is Winterfell and the Far North she wants and that is why she has summoned you, Jon.”

Jon snorted. “I would make a poor Hand. And besides, she must know that the free folk would never follow her just on account of me.” _I told her that myself, all those years ago._ “And I thought her far too occupied with her eastern ambitions than to take notice of the North.” Daenerys Targaryen was firm, nay, _consumed_ in her dreams of a world rid of slavery. That all men knew, even the man who had once been Jon Snow. She had spent the winter in Westeros losing two dragons in Beyond-the-Wall and at Winterfell, but come summer, her legions had marched once more out of Meereen to take Yunkai and Astapor with her last remaining beast of war. Dragon Bay, the few foreign envoys who braved the cold of the north now called what was once Slaver’s Bay. That, or a few far more colourful and far less polite epithets. “The dragon queen and her wolfish Hand” Jon mused, smiling sardonically. “Fire and ice. Sounds like one of Old Nan’s tales, the ones you used to enjoy, Sansa.”

Sansa was not amused. “Children’s tales of knights and maidens are just that, Jon. Tales for children.” She let out a long sigh and took his hand in her’s. “Jon, you must go, but listen carefully. Do not accept any position unless she forces it on you. And if she does, you must promise me. Do not be our lord father come-again, nor our uncle Brandon nor our lord grandfather either. I know you are a Stark, perhaps more so than I even, but if you must be a lord of winter, take Lord Cregan as an example. And do not act the part of a gallant hero either. In the south, heroes are rarer than winter roses, and they wilt away much sooner too.” Jon snorted, but Sansa only tightened her grip. Her blue eyes seemed to bore into his very soul. “We are the last of our lord father’s children,” Sansa said, so softly he almost did not hear. “I cannot lose you too.”

“You have Rickon,” Jon reminded her. She nodded, but her eyes did not leave his.

“Promise me you won’t be foolish, that you will make it back to Winterfell to your wife and your children.” There was no sign of a jest or a jab in her voice, only a deathly seriousness that reminded him all too much of her mother. Though the hearth was roaring, and the gentle climes of the Vale were far kinder than the frosts of the North, there was something in or about her words that sent goosebumps prickling down his spine. Despite the thick leathers and furs he war, far too heavy for the Eyrie, he shivered. He saw Daenerys’ radiant face, then the cold tears and hard rage that had flowed from her violet eyes, then those tears were Bowen Marsh’s, and Jon was back in the cold snow of Castle Black, bleeding out again as Ghost howled in the night. He heard Val’s singing and Joanna’s laugh, and then saw Sansa’s hair flowing free as she rode ‘neath the moon-and-falcon banners that had approached Winterfell. Then he was entering the crypts of Winterfell, Longclaw drawn, the Starks of old gazing coldly upon the bastard that dared to place himself among of their ranks. Robb’s sepulcher glanced down at him with a stony indifference he had not possessed in life. His father’s likeness seemed to ask why of his many children, it was the one who was not even a Stark who had inherited his keep and name. Beside him, his siblings Brandon and Lyanna stared and-

Sansa’s voice shook him out of his reverie, firm but sweet. “Promise me, Jon.”

***

“I’d like to go with you, Father.”

“It would not be wise, Edd dear.” Sansa said. Though Jon’s son nodded, he could tell the boy would have rolled his eyes were it not for the respect he held for his aunt. _He acts just like you did, Robb_. With hair lighter than even his mother’s, Edd, like Jon’s brother, was an heir of Winterfell who looked more southron than Stark though both his parents were of the north. Unlike Robb, he possessed the grey eyes of their house. _My eyes_ , Jon thought proudly. _And that of my father’s before me_. Thinking of Lord Eddard and Robb sent a lance of pain through his heart, as it always did, pain that Jon could ill afford at present.

“You will stay here in the Eyrie with your aunt and cousin until I return from King’s Landing,” Jon told him. He smiled. “Be good for your aunt and be kind to Anya.”

His son flushed. “Father, I’m not a boy any longer,” he hissed. “I am four-and-ten in a few moons.”

Jon smiled, ruffling his hair, causing his son’s scowl to deepen. “Four-and-ten is still far too young to be called a man.”

“You were that age when you left for the Night’s Watch,” Edd countered. “And they elected you the youngest Lord Commander ever. Everyone knows that.”

“I wasn’t the youngest, son.” _Though I was younger than most, too young_. Jon couldn’t quite recall who the youngest had been, though he knew it had been a Stark. He also knew what it was like to be treated a boy when all one wanted to be was a man, honourable and respected. “Look after your cousin and aunt, while I and your Uncle Rickon are gone, Edd.” Though he rolled his eyes this time, Edd seemed to stand taller and prouder. A lordly gaze fell over his face. He nodded. Jon turned to Sansa again. “Most of the Winterfell men will be split between Rickon and I, though I will leave a dozen here with Edd. I trust that will be fine, my lady?”

“It will be,” Sansa smiled. “We have the Arryn guard with us, and the Brotherhood too. We will be fine, Jon. The Eyrie is impregnable.” _No castle is impregnable, sweet Sansa. Especially when dragons once more rule the skies._

“Very well.” he said, instead of voicing his thoughts. It would not do to worry Sansa, who deserved whatever happiness she could find. “Please give Lord Harrold my regards. Like as not, it may be that I do not get to see him again for some time.”

“I will. You may still meet him as you leave the Gates. Ironoaks is not far, and you will not leave until the morrow.”

“Perhaps.”

Rickon grinned. “The Arryn entourage is far larger than our’s, brother.” He paused slyly. “And slower too.”

“Rickon.” Jon had to reprimand him, though he smiled slightly. He turned to his brother, seated near the fire in Lord Harrold’s solar. For the past hour, he had been answering Cat’s questions about Hardhome and the true north, his discomfort all the more amusing to Jon. Doubtless he would have preferred being able to ride freely with his Skagosi warband and his wolf than being cooped up in the Eyrie, as magnificent as the castle was. “Will you travel by way of Gulltown and White Harbour, or Strongsong and Greywater? Meera or Lady Wynafryd would be glad to have you, I know.” His brother stared blankly at him. Jon sighed, passing him a rolled-up map. Rickon groaned loudly, causing Cat and Jeyne to giggle, though he unclasped its leather binding and unfurled it.

“If you go by way of Gulltown, find a captain who will travel directly to White Harbour,” Sansa said, before Rickon had the chance to speak. “I mislike the Sistermen and their lords.”

“The summer storms are much worse this year,” Anya spoke up. Jon glanced at her, surprised. His sister’s eldest was much like her mother back when they had been children at Winterfell. A proud, dainty girl at first glance, though if she could grow into half the woman Sansa had become, the Eyrie would be in safe hands. She had been braiding Alys Stone’s hair quietly in the corner. “Rhea told me. She said her father had written about it in their letters”

“Could we go through Moat Cailin, nuncle?” Cat piped up, glancing expectantly at Rickon. His brother, who rode with Skagosi warbands and had fought with the free folk since he was nine looked uncharacteristically nervous at the verbal onslaught. “I’ve heard that no army can pass through it, not with the lizard lions and frogs and crannogmen.” Beside her, Jeyne nodded.

“I’ve always wanted to see the crannogmen,” Sansa’s youngest added thoughtfully.

His brother sighed. “I guess we will go by way of-” he glanced at the map again. “Strongsong, then Moat Cailin.”

“You should take half my men,” Jon said. “I will ride to King’s Landing with Tormund, Grenn, Asher, and two-thirds of the Winter Guard.” _The men I trust_. Jon Snow had made the mistake of sending his closest companions to Eastwatch and the other castles on the Wall. The various wounds that dotted his abdomen and chest were signs of the sharp lesson he had learned. Jon Stark would not do the same. “You can have your pick of the rest.”

Rickon grinned cockily. “I don’t need _that_ many, Jon. I have Shaggy with me.” Jon sighed, but he smiled, nonetheless.

“Robb had Grey Wind.” Sansa said, quietly. She was staring into the hearth, a distant look on her face. Rickon sobered instantly.

“No harm will come to your children, Sansa, nor to you.” Rickon said. “I swear it, by the weirwood, the winter frost, and the green groves of our land.” It was a strange oath to be sure - a Skagosi one, if Jon recalled correctly, but it was by no means stranger than the ones he had grown accustomed to from the distant Stark bannermen and the leaders of the free folk. They spoke for a while after, discussing plans and paths. Jon wrote a brief missive to Val and sealed it in white wax. Though Val could read and write better than most ladies, north or south, she had no patience for lengthy letters. Thinking of his honey-haired wife, lovelier than the coloured lights in the far northern skies, and of peaceful, quiet, Winterfell - _home_ \- instilled in Jon a quiet determination. _I will not die like my father_ , he thought. _I must live, for Val, for Sansa, and for the children_. He left Rickon to talk with his nieces and stepped out into the cool air of the night. The lower levels of the Moon Tower were connected to the other towers by an open walkway upon the inner walls of the Eyrie, and it was there he stood, leaning against the parapets. What could Daenerys possibly want from him? He had given her everything there was to give. His sword, his fealty, his hearth. Ten years ago, he had told her he had no interest in the South. Winterfell was his home, as was the wild wolfswood and the icy lakes near Whitetree and beyond. There was nothing for him south of Moat Cailin, nothing but ashes and emptiness where his father and Robb had once stood. Unless-

“Nuncle Jon?” He turned to face Cat. In the low torchlight, her pretty eyes were a dark, melancholy shade, so unlike the sweet girl he knew she was. They brightened with her smirk. “Mother said I would find you here,” she said, proudly. “She says you brood too much,” she added as an afterthought.

Jon laughed, ruffling her hair. She did not seem to mind. “Your mother worries too much for me. What is it you want, Cat?”

“I’d like to walk with you,” she said, shyly, much like another girl had once asked him to teach her to ride all those years ago, back when he was still a boy of summer and spring.

“Of course,” Jon smiled. He offered his arm, and she took it.

“Are you scared of the queen?”

“A little.” Jon admitted. He had never been a very good liar. From beyond the blank veil of his mind, he heard a wizened, blind old man speak though he could not exactly recall the words. It must have been something wise, something resonant, though, for him to be able to recall as much. “She has her… moods. But I know she means well.”

“They said you were friends, when you fought the Others together.”

“It is… complicated,” Jon explained. They had entered a different tower now; one Jon did not know. Cat walked quickly still, with a confidence and speed that her taller stature allowed. Though she was eleven, she was near as tall as his shoulder. Soon, she might be as tall as him, he realised. “She was one of the bravest people I have met, and one of the kindest.” Cat frowned.

“Then how can you be scared of her? Everyone knows that Jon Stark is a fearless warrior.”

“I’m not fearless, Cat. I’ve never been. I try to do the right things, to be the right lord, but even after a decade I am not sure the gods were right to place Winterfell in my hands.” He paused. “My brother Robb would have been a finer lord - _king_ \- had he lived.” Another long silence passed, as Cat glanced thoughtfully up at him, before he spoke again. “Queen Daenerys was my… friend,” he allowed. “But the years have been long since we last spoke. I know not of her moods now, nor much of her reign. News travels slowly in the North. We do not hear or see much of the changes that have made your southern lords revile her so.”

“But how do you rule the North then, without her laws?”

Jon smiled ruefully. “No one man _rules_ the North, Cat, especially not now. My father had to rely on his lords, as did his father before him. Especially now, with the free folk among our ranks, it is… different. The Starks rule Winterfell, aye, and our lords still do homage to us. The free folk – they do not kneel, and they never will. They choose their leaders, and it just happens that they’ve chosen me. If Edd grows to be a strong and just lord, perhaps they will choose him too.” His niece looked confused, but she did not ask him any further questions. By now, they had walked near a loop across the ramparts of the Eyrie. They stood in a tower Jon recognized as the one where he had been lodged with Rickon and his men. To his shame, he did not remember the name. _Robb was good with names_ , he thought, _as was our father too_. “Wait for me here,” he told Cat, who looked even more confused. He winked at her and raced up the stairs to his room. He retrieved a package, neatly wrapped in a thin leather satchel and brought it down the steps. “Your lord father mentioned you enjoyed archery in the letters he wrote,” he called out to his niece.

“Whenever Mother lets me.” She shrugged and scowled. Were it not for her light hair and dark eyes, she might have been Arya come again. His heart ached. _I don’t even remember her face_ , he thought dully, _not fully_. When they had… brought him back, he realised there were things he did not remember clearly. Names and places that sprung from the blankness in the farthest confines of the mind that housed his thoughts, teasing him with glimpses of a past he once knew before receding back into a present he rarely recognized, small pieces welded together by second-hand knowledge given to him by those who had known him _before_. Names and places that escaped him, as if they were wild doe rabbits fleeing the ravenous wolf he had become, consumed by his need to recall _more_. Sometimes, he could lock onto one, clutching it, though it seemed that for every one thing he could recall, ten more were memories so faded and distant he oft questioned if they were truly real, if they had truly happened. His lord father’s visage, or the games he and Robb used to play. _I called him Stark, and he called me Snow_. He had even forgotten Sansa, just remembered he had a sister whose pretty hair and smile lit up each room she strolled into. Coming back to Winterfell after the long years at the Wall had helped him to recall many of the things that he had lost. Winterfell was Robb’s dry grin, Lord Stark’s kind eyes, Bran’s messy hair after a quick climb, and a younger Rickon’s angry wail. It was Sansa’s smile and Arya’s needlework, and the warmth of the hearth in the breakfasts his family had shared. Before he had left for the Wall, earning and losing a black cloak. Before his father, Arya, and Sansa had ridden south. Before Robb too had called the banners and went to wage a war in a Riverlands, never to return. _Before they died_. He forced a smile and when he gazed upon the girl so fierce and confident she could’ve been his little sister, it became a genuine grin, though one taut with melancholic memories that came in short, faded intervals. He unclasped the leather buckle of the satchel, and gently pulled out a bow. It was as pale as Ghost’s fur, and neatly carved, with a simple yet intricate pattern of linking rune-chains across the body. Val had carved it herself, humming by the hearth in their room as she did it. The wood had come from a few long branches that had broken off the great heart-tree at Whitetree, where his wife had been born.

“I had this made for you,” he said, softly. Cat’s eyes widened. She reached out slowly, touching the cleanly cut edges of the bow with an almost reverent stance. He smiled. “Weirwood is lighter than the ash, yew, or ironwood most of the northern bowmen use, though that ought not to be a problem. Like as not, you’ll still grow.

“Val thought a knife might suit you better, but you’ve more experience with a longbow, and I’m not sure your father’s lords would thank me for giving his daughter a sharp blade.”

“It’s beautiful,” Cat whispered. She sprung forward and wrapped him a tight embrace. “Thank you! Thank you! _Thank you!”_

He ruffled her hair and laughed. “Once you’re in Winterfell, you can ask your cousin Joanna or your aunt to teach you how to make arrows. It’s not too difficult, though I much prefer a sword,” he said patting Longclaw, worn across his back. “Oh,” he added as an afterthought. “One last thing.” He glanced at her expectantly. “Don’t tell…”

“… my mother.” Cat grinned, and they both laughed.

***

The descent from the Eyrie was harsher than it had been on the way up, and slower too. Though they had left hours before noon, by the time they reached the Gates of the Moon the sun was near setting. Jon insisted on leaving straight away despite the insistence of Nestor Royce and the castle castellan. _It would not do to keep Daenerys waiting_. His time beyond the Wall had taught him to rest as easily on the road as in a castle featherbed, and the forested kingsroad of the Vale was far kinder than the icy wastes past Castle Black. He knew the men he hand-picked had no such complaints too, for they were either used to the bitter terrain of the North or, in the case of Asher Forrester, the desert dunes of Essos. He had said his goodbyes to Sansa, who had stayed behind in the Eyrie for her own reasons, though Edd and Anya had come down with them. There, they would stay until Lord Harrold arrived.

“You look like a sworn brother,” Sansa had smiled, amused at his garb. He had shrugged, though he could not deny it was true. Though his breeches were a darker shade of grey, his tunic, cloak, and trousers were as black as they had always been. The only spots of colour on his person were the white wolf’s head on Longclaw with its red eyes, and the thin brooch Val had carved for him, much like her own. _You are mine, Lord Snow_ , she had whispered as she fastened it on his cloak. Like her’s, it was a weirwood face, though larger and much closer in likeness to the heart-tree in the godswood of Winterfell than the one at Whitetree. She had weaved in two small rubies as the heart-tree’s eyes, and they glinted in the morning light as he had kissed Sansa’s cheek and taken his leave.

“Black has always been my colour,” he had said, smiling slightly. He felt then as if he another rare memory had resurfaced, some small artifact once belonging to the boy named Jon Snow, but he couldn’t quite grasp on to it as it narrowly slipped through the crevices of his mind. It had consumed his thoughts the entire way down from the Eyrie, his brows furrowed and his thinking fierce as he tried his best to recall what had been lost – but to no avail. _I will remember_ , _if not today, then on the morrow_. His men had ridden out of the Gates then, after Rickon had left with Cat and Jeyne. Jon mounted his horse, though he turned to smile at his son once more.

Edd smiled back, his hair shining gold under the summer sun. “I will wait for your safe return, Father,” he said.

Jon nodded. “Stay safe, Edd. I shall see you soon.” He then turned and galloped after the van of his household guard, closely followed by the rest. For now, Jon Snow’s memories could afford to wait. Before the dragon queen, he needed to be Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell. Above him, ravens cawed as they flew from far above in the Eyrie. _Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Kill him, and let the man be born_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. I think it’s very likely that Jon will be resurrected with missing memories, like the other ‘fire-wights’ we have seen in the books. I doubt his condition will be as severe as Beric or Lady Stoneheart (probably because he’ll warg into Ghost), but this theme of general amnesia has been teased a lot by GRRM, both in the context of resurrection and this wider sense of ‘history repeats itself’. Despite being on the Wall, Jon is consumed by the idea of family. He thinks of his mother, his father, and his siblings, and also fantasizes about one day having a wife and son though he quickly squashes this with the constant reminders of “I’m a bastard”. I think it’s clear that this family-loving idealism and honour he gets from Ned stands in stark (heh) contrast to his more envious side in which he wants to be Lord of Winterfell, to wield Ice, and to father children. Though he’s an obvious traditional protagonist, I think he is also one character that best embodies the original vision of ASOIAF in portraying the conflict in human hearts. Here, he's also suffering from a healthy dose of survivor's guilt. 
> 
> II. In terms of appearance and character, Jon Snow/Stark is completely book-based. I think Kit Harrington is a phenomenal actor, but I also think crafty, shrewd, ambitious, yet honourable Jon Snow is a far more complex and interesting character than the Aragorn-esque good guy we got in GoT. Jon still suffers from insecurities I don’t think he’ll ever manage to fully deal with though, and he often has a tendency both in the books and show to severely underestimate his physical and mental capacities. This is what makes his character so compelling in my mind, second only to Jaime, and something I aspire to be able to replicate here. I like when authors leave character appearance up to interpretation, but my favourite depiction of him (quite similar to the ‘official’ artwork too) is by Josu Hernaiz. I used it for reference when thinking of how an ‘aged up’ Jon could look.
> 
> III. A few AGOT references here and there, obvious and not, for the discerning reader.


End file.
